


Hands Stained Red

by CityofJade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Dean, Hurt Sam Winchester, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:42:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CityofJade/pseuds/CityofJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demon Dean killed Sam, and it wasn't a quick death either. A year later Dean is cured and has to live with what he has done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands Stained Red

Sam died bloody.

He had always hoped that when he went out, it would be quick. A bullet to the heart, or a knock on the head from being thrown into one of those damned tombstones that ghosts were so fond of throwing him into. It seemed only right that he would meet his end while making the world a better place with his brother at his side.

It was Dean who killed him.

Sam is adamant that this isn't Dean. This stranger, this _imposter_ , wearing Dean's face isn't really Dean. Because Dean is a good man, a hero. And he would never willingly hurt Sam. Wouldn't even think about doing the things that he's doing.

The Dean with black eyes begs to differ.

"You see, that's the problem, Sammy." He whispers, tracing the line of his jaw with Ruby's knife. "I'm pure. One hundred percent true Dean Winchester. The trouble with- well- _old_ _me_ , was that he was held back. Burdened with those poisons. Guilt, that sense of duty that kept me stuck with you. I'm free now. And this is just Pinocchio cutting the strings that kept him dancing."

 

Sam pleads, not for himself, but for Dean.

" _Please_ Dean. This isn't the real you. We can fix this. Together, as brothers, just like we always have."

Dean wonders why they ever thought that being brothers could fix anything.

 

 

Sam refuses to scream.

He has a high pain threshold. After centuries in Lucifer's cage, and the pain he's endured on Earth, he's felt it all, and he's determined not to give in. He knows that when Dean is back to normal(and he _will_ be cured, Sam refuses to believe anything else), that his screams would only haunt him. He has to stay strong, for Dean. So he gasps, he whimpers and yelps once or twice when Dean does something unexpected. He holds his breath when the knife gets too close to his eyes, turns groans into coughs, but he refuses to scream.

Dean was trained by Alistair, who in turn was trained by Lucifer. He can make anyone scream.

Bones shattered, struggling to breathe through a raw and sore throat, Sam prays with lips he bit bloody to a god that left them all behind that Dean will forget what his screams sounded like.

 

As much fun as it is to torture Sam, Dean still has other needs.

So for two days, while Dean re-visits his favorite bar, Sam remembers hell alone in the dark. Lucifer had often pretended to be Dean, but Sam could always tell the difference. Always knew that it wasn't really him. And that made it bearable. This time he can't; it really is Dean.

For a moment he wishes he was back in the cage.

 

 

It all ends when he tells Dean that he loves him.

The knife in his heart might be symbolic Dean thinks, watching the light quickly fading from hazel eyes, last tears still clinging to long, dark lashes.

 

 

Cas finds him a few days later, His soul already long gone.

Sam had had a beautiful soul. Both Winchesters did. They were two pieces to one puzzle. Glowing with the brightest of lights and singing the sweetest of songs. It's the absence of Sam's soul that makes Cas realize that he never really told the youngest Winchester brother what he meant to him, how he no longer saw him as an abomination- as the boy with the demon blood. How after all that he had seen and done these past years, Sam was just as important to him as Dean was.

Hannah watches him mourn, helps him bury the mutilated body of Lucifer's vessel. The could have been king. He rests beside his grandfather, and Hannah swears to see Dean Winchester cured.

No matter the cost.

 

 

Missouri Mosely finds an ugly bronze amulet at a garage sale that surfaces distant memories of fire singed children grown into men.

Her powers have waned in her old age, but not enough that she can't feel the significance of the thing. She pays too much for it and remembers two boys as she does.

She doesn't know what happened to them, but she has a feeling they didn't get the happy ending that they deserved.

 

 

Cas stands outside the door of the Winchester's shared heaven.

 _Samuel Winchester._ The door says in gold letters. _1983-2014._

 _Dean Winchester_ , it says just below, letters barely discernible.

Cas doesn't go in.

 

 

A few months later, Crowley has realized that he made a mistake. Dean as a human was bad, he can't imagine why he thought Dean as a demon would be any better.

 

 

It takes two very reluctant hunters, Crowley, Hannah, and another angel named Moroni to take down Dean. He puts up quite the fight and no one comes away unscathed.

They relocate and Cas tries not to think about how he, an angel of the Lord, is breaking into a church to cure the once human demon that he fell from God's grace for not so long ago. At first they use purified bagged blood, but after a near escape attempt that involves several smashed needles and a bit of fire, Rudy is forced to spend ten minutes in the confessional before resuming the ritual, during which he nurses a broken finger and takes great pleasure in jamming the needle into Dean's neck.

 

 

When he's not rattling his chains and threatening them, Dean is reliving the circumstances of Sam's death with unconstrained glee.

"You know why I finally killed 'im?" Dean says at the start of the seventh hour, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "He told me that he forgave me and that he still loved me. So I shoved my knife through his heart."

Cas has to leave the room.

 

 

The eighth hour sees barely concealed panic and flickering black eyes as the exorcism is chanted, blade hovering ready over Rudy's palm.

Dean growls and thrashes, but he appears exhausted, and at the press of a bloody hand, promptly passes out. The remaining spectators, the other hunter, and Hannah, wait with bated breath as green eyes blink open, and a broken _"Sammy"_ is whispered.

Dean Winchester is cured.

 

 

Against Cas' advice Dean returns to the bunker.

He stands in front of Sam's grave for hours, but can't find the strength to enter his room. He wanders the halls quietly, clutching one of their few surviving family photos and a bottle of whiskey. He wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating, Sam's screams still echoing in his ears. He buys fancy coffees and salads and plenty of fruit that he always ends up throwing out.

His heart beats and his lungs breathe, but he doesn't live.

Sammy was his life.

 

 

One night he wanders down _that_ hall and follows the trail of blood to the dungeon.

He flips the light switch and immediately wishes that he hadn't.

Books are scattered, pages loose, rusty weapons lie exactly where Dean left them a year ago. Everything is coated with a fine layer of dust, and a light bulb is shattered in a dark corner.

The floor is stained red.

Red with his brothers blood.

He runs out the door and down the hall, but he can still hear him screaming. He smashes everything he can get his hands on but he can still see him bleeding.

He strips down under burning hot water and scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, but he can never get clean, can never remove the toxic mark on his arm.

His hands are as stained as the floor that Sammy died on, and the knife that did it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this would have been posted last night but Wordpad ate my document. So after a few hours of doing everything in my power to restore it, I finally accepted that it was a lost cause, jotted down everything I could remember writing and went to bed. This morning I woke up and re-wrote it to the best of my abilities. It's not the same and it's most likely not as good as it was so I apologize, but I hope you enjoyed nevertheless.


End file.
